March 31, 2016

Mary Jane Lenz working with objects from the museum's Northwest Coast collections, February 1984. Research Branch, Museum of the American Indian–Heye Foundation, Pelham Bay, The Bronx, New York. Photo by Julia Smith, Museum of the American Indian.

With great sadness, I am writing to say that our dear friend and colleague Mary Jane Lenz passed away yesterday afternoon, having celebrated her 86th birthday on March 24. Mary Jane, or simply MJ as she was called by those closest to her, had a long and distinguished professional career at the museum, both when it was the Museum of the American Indian–Heye Foundation in New York City and after it became the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., and New York.

As an undergraduate, Mary Jane began work at Beloit College’s Logan Museum of Anthropology, and she remained interested in museums and museum work all her life. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Beloit in 1952 with a degree in Anthropology. In 1954 she received her Master's degree in Sociology and Anthropology from Bryn Mawr. For her Master’s research, she did fieldwork in the Tlingit community of Yakutat under the direction of the distinguished anthropologist Frederica de Laguna.

After many years of focusing her attention on her young family, and prompted by a New York Times article about the challenges facing the Museum of the American Indian–Heye Foundation, Mary Jane contacted Frederick J. Dockstader, then director of the museum. As a result of their discussions, she joined the museum’s staff in 1974. She was appointed director of its Archaeological Lab in 1976 and worked on materials recently excavated from Marajo Island near the mouth of the Amazon in Brazil. From 1977 onward she worked in the Curatorial Department, where she helped conduct a complete inventory of the museum’s collections as well as assisted researchers with their work. Mary Jane was also involved in supporting early repatriation requests from the Haudenosaunee, A:shiwi, and Kwakwaka’wakw nations, and in the return of sacred objects to the Omaha and Hidatsa. During this period, she continued her education by taking graduate courses in Anthropology at the City University of New York.

Throughout her career Mary Jane curated exhibitions and wrote about art and material culture and the history of the MAI. In her early years at the museum, she assisted the curatorial team for the exhibition Ancestors: Native Artisans of the Americas, shown at the U.S. Custom House in 1979. In 1981 she wrote the text for the exhibition Arctic Art: Eskimo Ivory at the Museum of the American Indian at Audubon Terrace. Later that year Mary Jane traveled with Collections and Exhibition staff to set install the Ancestors exhibit in the Museum of Chinese History in Beijing, China, combining nearly 600 works from the museum’s collections and 80 historical paintings of the American West from the Anschutz Collection of Denver. She curated the exhibitions Out of the Mists: Northwest Coast Indian Art at the IBM Gallery in New York (1984) and The Stuff of Dreams: Native American Dolls (1986) at Museum of the American Indian; she also served as co-curator of the museum's exhibition A Gift from the Heart: Two Pomo Artists (1990).

During the years following the establishment of the National Museum of the American Indian as part of the Smithsonian, MJ worked with others on planning for both the Museum on the National Mall and the Cultural Resources Center, the museum's collections and research facility in Maryland. She contributed to the development and writing of two major exhibitions for the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian's Heye Center in New York in 1994—All Roads Are Good: Native Voices on Life and Culture and Creation’s Journey: Native American Identity and Belief.

MaryJane Lenz in her office, ca. 2010. (Not shown: The hundreds of books, journals, and research papers that surrounded her.) National Museum of the American Indian Cultural Resources Center, Suitland, Maryland. Photo by Katherine Fogden (Mohawk), NMAI.

Following the completion of the Cultural Resources Center in 1999, Mary Jane moved to Washington. Here she headed the museum's Curatorial Department and served as chair of the Curatorial Council for several years. For the opening of the museum on the National Mall, she curated Window on Collections, which is still on view. She served as a co-curator of Listening to our Ancestors: The Art of Native Life along the Northwest Coast, a collaboration among the museum and 12 Native nations that was shown in both Washington (2007) and New York (2008). She also took part in workshops that brought together Native and non-Native scholars, artists, and community members to produce the permanent exhibition Infinity of Nations: Art and History in the Collections of the National Museum of the American Indian (2010) for the museum in New York.

In addition to her contributions to museum publications—including books for most of the exhibitions mentioned above—Mary Jane wrote for American Indian Art Magazine and served on their editorial board and published in Art & Antiquities.

Mary Jane’s special areas of research and expertise included Northwest Coast, Arctic, and Subarctic peoples, and the cross-cultural study of dolls. She devoted much time to improving the documentation for the museum's collections in these areas, and her book Small Spirits: Native American Dolls from the National Museum of the American Indian (2004) is still widely read. More than that, however, she was vitally interested in all aspects of Native life, world culture, and current events and politics. She retired from the museum in 2011, but remained in Washington until 2013, when she moved to the Boston area to be nearer to her family.

These professional accomplishments were but one part of MJ’s life. She was the proud mother of five children—Patty, Peggy, Sue, Mike and Tim—and an equally proud and indulgent grandmother. For many of us she filled several roles, combining the attributes of friend, colleague, role model, and enthusiastic supporter during the years we knew her. She welcomed many people to her home on Capitol Hill, which was filled with books, the personal collections she had accumulated over decades, and—most of all—the incredible interest and warmth she brought to every part of her life and, by extension, to our lives. Her spirit and generosity—personal, collegial, and intellectual—will be sorely missed.

—Kevin Gover, NMAI

Kevin Gover (Pawnee) is the director of the National Museum of the American Indian.

March 10, 2016

“Unbound: Narrative Art of the Plains” opens this Saturday, March 12, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center in New York City. Alongside historic masterworks, the exhibition showcases 50 new pieces by contemporary Native artists. Sixteen contemporary artists are represented, three of whom are women. In honor of Women’s History Month, we are taking a closer look at one work by each of these women that will be featured in the exhibition.

Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty (Assiniboine/Sioux) is skilled at both bead- and quillwork. After learning how to bead simple belts at the young age of 10, she now enjoys creating beautiful pieces based upon abstract and realistic designs focused on nature, mythology, and daily life.

Growing Thunder Fogarty created Doll with Honor Dress in collaboration with her brother, Darryl Growing Thunder. Darryl drew the horses while Juanita made the doll and completed the bead- and quillwork. Darryl is also a featured artist in the exhibition.

Vanessa Jennings (Kiowa/Pima) has been quoted as saying, “I don't like the title 'artist.' I look at myself and see myself as just a traditional woman.” She is well known as a regalia maker, clothing designer, cradleboard maker, and bead artist. These skills bring her recognition as a keeper of Kiowa culture.

According to Jennings, in her culture it is not proper for men to brag about war deeds, so the women dress up to tell the stories and honor the men. Jennings created this battle dress in a style similar to those worn by women related to members of the Ton-Kon-Ga, or the Kiowa Black Leggings Society.

Lauren Good Day Giago (Arikara/Hidatsa/Blackfeet/Plains Cree) is recognized for the passion she brings to revitalizing her people’s cultural arts and merging them with new methods during her creation process. She began with creating beadwork and tribal regalia and has since moved to quillwork, ledger drawings, parfleche, and fashion.

Plains narrative art is known historically as a predominantly male art form focused on hunting and battles. Giago’s ledger art, however, depicts women, children, families, and courtship. In this particular piece, she shows the day she and her husband, who is Oglala Lakota, ceremonially adopted a relative’s daughter.

These three women are demonstrating their people’s culture through amazing artworks. Join the conversation throughout Women’s History Month by telling us on our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram page about amazing indigenous women in your life and what makes them so special using the hashtag #WomenAre.

—Shanice Jarmon, NMAI

Shanice Jarmon is a social media specialist in the National Museum of the American Indian’s Office of Public Affairs.

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March 09, 2016

Saturday, March 12, five contemporary artists will be on hand at the National Museum of the American Indian's Heye Center in New York for the opening of Unbound: Narrative Art of the Plains.

In celebration of Women's History Month, the museum presents Crossing Lines: Women and Ledger Art. Traditionally ledger art is most frequently associated with men, but many women are outstanding artists in the Plains narrative style. Meet three women who use the art form to tell their own unique stories. Starting around 11 a.m.,Unbound artists Lauren Good Day Giago (Arikara/Hidatsa/Blackfeet/Plains Cree) and Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty (Assiniboine/Sioux) will be available in the exhibition gallery to talk about their work. In the Heye Center's Great Hall, up-and-coming ledger artist Wakeah Jhane (Comanche/Blackfeet/Kiowa) will demonstrate ledger drawing.

Curator Emil Her Many Horses (Oglala Lakota) and artist Lauren Good Day Giago, preparingLauren's piece Honoring Grandpa Blue Bird to go on exhibit in Unbound. Lauren created the painted dress to honor her grandfather's military service.

The women artists will be joined in the gallery by two fellow Unbound artists—Dallin Maybee (Northern Arapaho/Seneca) and Chris Pappan (Kaw/Osage/Cheyenne River Lakota).

Unbound: Plains Narrative Art will be on view at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York from March 12 to December 4, 2016.

Unbound is curated by Emil Her Many Horses (Oglala Lakota), with historic works from the museum's collections by 14 artists. The 11 who are known by name are Long Soldier (Lakota/Nakota), Mountain Chief (Blackfeet), Bear’s Heart (Southern Cheyenne), Zo-tom (Kiowa), Black Chicken (Yanktonai), Canté-wani′ća/No Heart (Yanktonai), Chief Washakie (Shoshone), Spotted Tail (Crow), Old Buffalo (Lakota/Nakota), Rain in the Face (Lakota), and Ćehu′pa/Jaw (Hunkpapa Lakota).

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March 03, 2016

On Saturday, March 12, the exhibition Unbound: Narrative Art of the Plainsopens at the National Museum of the American Indian's George Gustav Heye Center in New York. Unbound reflects the dynamic tradition of narrative art among Native nations from the Great Plains. Plains narrative art took shape through various media, such as painted deerskin war shirts and buffalo robes. As trade broadened during the 19th century, artists created elaborate battle scenes on large canvas tipi liners and used muslin cloth, as well as hides, to record winter counts, some documenting more than 100 years of history. When the U.S. government established forts and reservations on the Plains and ledger books became available to tribal members, Plains artists filled their pages with narrative drawings. Native artists began reviving “ledger art” in the 1970s, creating vibrant and widely collected drawings and paintings. Unbound includes historic drawings and paintings, as well as more than 50 works by contemporary Native artists commissioned by the museum.

Next Thursday, March 10, at 6 in the evening, Emil Her Many Horses (Oglala Lakota) will give a curator's talk on Unbound at the Heye Center. Attendees will also have a chance to preview the exhibition. We asked Emil to take a few minutes in the run-up to the opening to give us a brief interview.

Emil Her Many Horses: Two things, really. One is that the museum has such a great collection of Plains narrative art. These are drawings or paintings that document war deeds and horse raids, and also personal experiences, like courtship, or subject matter that is both historic and personal, like the books of drawings made in the late 1870s by the southern Plains men held in the military jail at Ft. Marion. In addition, the Smithsonian has remarkable photographs and other materials that shed light on the historical narrative art in our collection.

My second reason is that, as an artist who takes part in many art shows, I see what Plains artists are doing with narrative art now. Plains narrative art has always reflected personal, as well as tribal, experiences, and that is still true of these contemporary pieces. Dallin Maybee, for example, illustrated his experience as a prosecutor at Gila River. He has also created what he calls an indigenized version of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, because he loved the book as a child and loved reading it to his own children. Lauren Good Day Giago has taken what was traditionally a men’s art form and used it to show traditional activities, but traditional activities of women and families. I knew Dwayne Wilcox would do something humorous, and one of his drawings for the exhibition shows powwow dancers busy on their cell phones.

Is there something you learned or something that surprised you in curating the exhibition?

I was surprised, and I think other members of the exhibition team were surprised, by how truly strong the museum’s collection of Plains narrative art is, and especially by how strong the collection of contemporary narrative art is. With the support of donors, we've been collecting 20th- and 21st-century art for a while now, and it shows.

Is there an idea in particular you hope visitors will take away from the exhibition?

I hate to reduce it to one idea, but I guess I want people to see how the historic tradition of narrative art inspires artists today. For example, we have the Long Soldier Winter Count—with entries drawn by several artist-historians from 1798 to 1902—on view with Red Bear’s Winter Count—Martin E. Red Bear’s record of a significant event in his life for each year from 1980 to 2004.

I also hope visitors will find specific works that are meaningful to them. As the exhibition’s curator, I feel strongly about every piece in Unbound, but I have to admit, what comes to my mind when I think about this question is Sherman Chaddlesone’s last painting. Sherman’s great-grandmother kept a ledger calendar for 78 years, which he credited with inspiring his interest in narrative art. Unbound includes a few of his paintings of Kiowa tribal history and cultural traditions. One shows members of the Kiowa Black Leggings Society dancing around a tipi. The striped tipi design is used specifically by the society, and the dancers wear red capes like the capes captured by Kiowa warriors in battle with the Mexican Army. Today the Black Leggings Society is made up of U.S. military veterans, and as a Vietnam veteran Sherman included himself among the dancers. He died before he finished the painting or signed it, but I visited him while he was working on it, and he pointed himself out among the dancers with great pride.

In commissioning new work for Unbound, I asked all of the contemporary artists to think about what best represents them. I think that’s something people will definitely be able to take away from the exhibition.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview before the opening.

Thank you. I hope you can come to the talk Thursday evening.

Unbound is curated by Emil Her Many Horses (Oglala Lakota), with historic works from the museum's collections by 14 artists. The 11 who are known by name are Long Soldier (Lakota/Nakota), Mountain Chief (Blackfeet), Bear’s Heart (Southern Cheyenne), Zo-tom (Kiowa), Black Chicken (Yanktonai), Canté-wani′ća/No Heart (Yanktonai), Chief Washakie (Shoshone), Spotted Tail (Crow), Old Buffalo (Lakota/Nakota), Rain in the Face (Lakota), and Ćehu′pa/Jaw (Hunkpapa Lakota).

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February 25, 2016

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Museum of the American Indian (MAI), now the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). On May 10, 1916, George Heye—along with trustees F. Kingsbury Curtis, Frederick K. Seward, and William Lare—signed a foundation deed creating the museum as an institution for “the collection, preservation, study and exhibition of all things connected with the anthropology of the aboriginal people of North, South and Central Americas, and containing objects of artistic, historic, literary and scientific interest” (MAI Foundation Deed, NMAI Archive Center B153.3). The basis of the MAI’s collection was the approximately 175,000 objects already assembled by George Heye and informally referred to as the Heye Museum.

George Heye laying the cornerstone of the Museum of The American Indian–Heye Foundation. November 8, 1916; New York City. NMAI P11449

George Heye had begun collecting Native American objects in 1897. By 1904 he became serious about founding his own museum, devoting much of his time to acquiring and cataloging large collections. He hired museum assistants, including staff from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) who worked after hours to help clean and organize his collections.

1905 time card for George Lentz, a museum assistant at the American Museum of Natural History, for his evening work for George Heye. NMAI.AC.001, Box 266.5

Heye cultivated relationships with collectors, dealers, and institutions that held Native American collections. He developed a vast network of ethnologists and archaeologists, including George Pepper (AMNH), Marshall Saville (Columbia University), Mark Raymond Harrington (a Columbia graduate), and archaeologist Theodoor de Booy, who collected material for Heye throughout the Americas.

Supper at the Heye Museum. 1912, New York City. From left, seated: Mrs. Marie Heye (George Heye’s mother), Harmon Hendricks, Thea Knowne Page (later Mrs. George Gustav Heye), and George Gustav Heye; standing: George Pepper, Theodoor De Booy, and Marshall H. Saville. In 1904 Heye rented two floors of a loft building at 10 East 33rd Street to house his growing collections. NMAI N10987

As early as December 1905, Heye sought support to found an institution with two facilities—one for exhibitions and one for storage, with research space for students. His motivation for collecting was not solely to amass a large private collection but to create an institution for the serious study of the people of the Americas. In 1906, after discussing his museum idea with philanthropist Archer Huntington, Heye decided that the time was not right to create an institution that would rival the American Museum of Natural History. Instead, Heye placed his growing North American ethnology and archaeology collections at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia. There his objects were cared for and exhibited in two galleries from 1909 until 1916, when Heye withdrew them to create the MAI—much to the dismay of the University Museum staff, who believed he would ultimately donate his collections to their museum.

In the decade between his first conversations about building a museum and laying the foundation stone 1916, Heye was able to generate support for his vision of a new anthropological institution in New York. In 1922, the Museum of the American Indian finally opened to the public at 155th and Broadway in New York, on a site at Audubon Terrace donated by Archer Huntington.

Thea Heye placing the first specimen in a display case in the Museum of the American Indian–Heye Foundation, 155th and Broadway, New York. NMAI N02173

Heye and MAI staff members continued to collect specimens, sending out archaeological and ethnographic expeditions to the far reaches of the Americas, buying from other collectors, and traveling abroad to purchase Native American items that had found their way into European collections. By 1990, when the MAI became part of the Smithsonian Institution, the collection included more than 800,000 objects, the great majority acquired during George Heye’s lifetime.

If not for the determination of George Heye and the MAI staff who expanded on his vision, the National Museum of the American Indian would not exist in its present form. Certainly, it would not conserve, for study and exhibition, the impressive collections for which it is known. This year we celebrate the founding of the Museum of the American Indian and the many individuals involved in buildings its collections. As part of our centenary celebration, the NMAI Archive Center is adding the newly digitized George Heye records and correspondence to the SOVA (Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives). See an earlier blog for more information about using the SOVA and check back here for more blogs about the museum’s history and the people associated with it.

—Maria Galban, NMAI

On May 11, the National Museum of the American Indian in New York will host the gala evening Legacies of Learning to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of George Gustav Heye's extraordinary collection as the Museum of the American Indian and to toast the museum's century of contributions to scholarship and cultural understanding. For more information about the gala and how it supports the museum's educational mission, or to read about the recipients of the 2016 NMAI Awards who will be honored that night, visit Legacies of Learning on the museum’s website.

Maria Galban is a research specialist on the Collections and Research Documentation staff at the National Museum of the American Indian.